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“On a Mobile Fidelity version of Dire Straits’ Brothers in Arms, I heard a wealth of scintillating detail and instruments that popped out from the background with shape and aliveness.”
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“I’ve grown to appreciate not only how they function as a company, but also how they manage to produce such remarkably beautiful and functional products that are all essentially hand-built.”
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Impressions of South Korea’s thriving audio show, along with a handful of Best-of-Show rooms.
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Prices listed in CA$. If there had been an award given out at the Audiofest for “Most Vintage-Looking Component”, the Fyne Classic Fifteen speakers ($50,000/pr) in the Villeneuve Audio Vidéo / Marchand Audio Vidéo room probably would have won it. The design is a point-source system whereby a bass/midrange cone is coupled to a high…
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Prices listed in CA$. I have fond memories of the Technics brand name. My dad’s very first turntable was the Technics SL-QX300—the first turntable I ever touched. As a kid seeing a record player for the first time, I was mesmerized by this foreign device and intrigued by how it was able to make sound.…
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Prices listed in CA$. This room looked more inviting to me than most other rooms I visited at the show. It looked like a private living room with plenty of space, so people waiting for a seat could just stroll around inside instead of waiting outside in the hallway, which was a relief. But it’s…
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Prices listed in CA$. Norway-based Hegel has been steadily gaining popularity with its great-sounding and elegantly-styled products. Of the two rooms they hosted at this year’s Montreal show, one presented a static display of several of the company’s successful products, while the other had an active demo that included a pair of MoFi SourcePoint 8…
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Prices listed in CA$. Filling up a humongous room is always a challenge for an audio system. And Lenbrook’s was probably the largest room I’d ever seen at an audio show. The PSB Synchrony T800 Premium loudspeakers ($16,999/pr) looked tiny against the front wall even though they weren’t small. They were placed so wide apart you could have…
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Prices listed in CA$. As soon as I walked into the Brooklyn Audio room, I started to worry. ‘Oh no,’ I thought. “They have electrostatic speakers!’ Don’t get me wrong, I love flat panel speakers, like the planar-magnetic Magnepans I have at home, but both planars and electrostats are dipole designs, meaning they project sound to…
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Prices listed in CA$ dollars unless otherwise noted. SVS is a company almost exclusively known for its subwoofers. So I was surprised to learn that they also make speakers. Doing its Canadian debut in the Laliberté Électronique room at the Montreal show were the Ohio-based company’s Pinnacle Ultra Evolution speakers (US$ 5000/pr; Canadian price TBD).…
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Prices in CA$. When it comes to audio companies that offer great price-performance value along with cutting-edge technology and style, very few can do it better than Paradigm and Anthem. This year at the Toronto Audiofest, the two companies partnered up to present two rooms: One for music, which included a relatively minimalist 2.1 system that…
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Prices listed in US$ except where otherwise noted. I heard more fantastic sound in the Audio by Mark Jones room, which displayed a pair of Apogee speaker-inspired planar-type Clarisys Audio Studio Plus speakers ($66,000/pair) allied to a stack of twin-chassis products that included a CH Precision 300Wpc M10 stereo power amplifier ($104,000), an L10 preamplifier…
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I can’t imagine bigger audio news this year than that of Audio Research filing for something akin to a Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Fearing that such an iconic company – one I always took for granted as being indestructible – might possibly go under and disappear from the audio landscape was disheartening and unsettling to me.…
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Prices listed are in CA$. You might assume that my mood darkened when a bass beat began pounding through my hotel room wall from the adjacent room while I was trying to concentrate on my writing, but it was the opposite. My mood was lifted. Swayed by the music’s tribal pulsations and sense of immediacy,…
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Episode 101 This week Bill Low, founder & chief designer of the acclaimed company AudioQuest, joins Jay Jay for part 2 of their conversation! Don’t miss this insightful discussion about the world of audio & its importance in our daily lives.AudioQuest is a company that develops tools for enhancing the in-home experience of audio and…